This is a repeating event- Event 1 / 212 December 2023 6:00 pm
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Event Details
SALON DETAILS:
- Facilitated by Keith Fosbrook
- Two-week virtual study (on Zoom) 5 & 12 December 2023
- Tuesdays, 6-8.00 pm
- Cost £60
- Recommended text: any edition is acceptable, but the Third Norton Critical Edition ISBN -10 039342037X ISBN – 13 978 – 039342037 1 offers much additional material to chew on!
Just before Christmas, a party of adults, sitting round a fire in an old house, were entertaining themselves by telling ghost stories. One of these concerned the appearance of a ghost to a little boy. Someone in the group expressed the opinion that the fact a young boy was involved added ‘another turn of the screw’ to the effect of such stories . . . But what would be the result if two children were involved? It so happened that one of the guests did have such a tale to narrate. He warned that the story was ‘quite too horrible’ and that nothing he knew of touched it for dreadfulness, ‘for general uncanny ugliness and horror and pain’. ‘Oh how delicious!’ cried one of the women.
The tale that followed forms the major part of Henry James’ masterpiece, The Turn of the Screw. Perhaps his most famous work, it was certainly very popular and has been filmed, adapted for dramatic performance many times, and even turned into an extraordinary opera by Benjamin Britten. Denounced early on for its supposed portrayal of evil, the original feelings of moral alarm it provoked have abated over the years, but the story is still capable of arousing very powerful feelings of anxiety.
Perhaps you would like to sign on for a pre-Christmas reading of a story which has lived on long after the death of its author. If you do, you may find yourself tempted to fill in the gaps in the narrative, though if you have read anything by Henry James you will realise that it is fruitless to expect to achieve any sense of certainty. The anxieties you may feel about exactly what is going on will not be allayed. You may or may not find the experience delicious. In fact you could well be afraid . . . be very afraid . . .
